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Space Tourism Mini-Boom

Posted by michael on from the you-must-be-this-tall-to-ride-the-shuttle dept.

Transcendent writes "Russia sent up the second space tourist today. Mark Shuttleworth, a 28 year old computer entrepeneur from South-Africa , was launched up at around 2:22am (EDT) on the Russian Soyuz TM-34 shuttle for $20 million. He'll be spending 8 days upon the ISS in hopes to combat the spread of AIDs in Africa. Catch the (pre-launch) stories at reuters and spacedaily, and the (post-launch) story at CNN with bonus Tito quotes. Not only is he the second space-tourist, but the first African to go into space. It also seems that NASA is accepting the tourism a little more this time."

3 of 23 comments (clear)

  1. Re:mmh? by alnapp · · Score: 3, Insightful
    IIRC, in the case of the first space tourist Dennis Tito the US initially objected, but the objections soon died down when they realised that:

    It'd help the Russians pay their way

    Public opinion liked the idea of him going

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  2. Re:WAR AGAINST AIDS! by Yet+Another+Smith · · Score: 4, Insightful

    He's going to modify the deflector array to emit a quasi-symmetric graviton polarity beam

    All of this sounds like applying a Star Trek solution to a Babylon 5 problem

    Unless he's going to get the Vorlons to tweak Thabo Mbeki's mind such that he stops believing that AIDS isn't caused by HIV, and starts pursuing a policy to stop AIDS infections.

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    if ($it != $onething) {$it = $another;}
  3. Profitability? by Darth_brooks · · Score: 2, Insightful
    How much money does the russian space agency make by training and sending a tourist into space?


    Sending the shuttle into orbit costs roughly 42 million dollars (a number that sticks out in my mind from some obscure place. I welcome anyone who can give me a more accurate figure), so by my own idiot math, that would say three passengers turns you a tidy 18 million dollar profit. But what are the costs to the russians?


    It's idle daydreaming, but if there are people willing to drop 20 million a ride, how long before the russians put together a second, tourist-only, space station? At this point it would seem to be a cash cow that could better fund their own programs. Or for that matter just pay their ground support costs.


    This is the real jurassic park. (sans velociraptors)

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    There are some people that if they don't know, you can't tell 'em.